HOW TO BRAND
YOUR ASPHALT
BUSINESS BETTER
AND ON A BUDGET
WHETHER YOU’VE BEEN IN BUSINESS A FEW MONTHS OR A FEW DECADES, THERE’S ONE THING THAT WILL
NEVER CHANGE—THE NEED TO KEEP A STEADY STREAM OF CUSTOMERS. WHEN MOST BUSINESS OWNERS HEAR
THE WORDS “ADVERTISING” OR “MARKETING,” THEY CRINGE AT THE THOUGHT OF SPENDING THOUSANDS OF
DOLLARS ON AN AGENCY OR GRAPHIC DESIGNER. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THERE’S NO NEED TO GO BROKE
TRYING TO MARKET YOUR COMPANY.
Here are some basic must-do marketing items and online
marketing tools:
GET YOUR WEB DOMAIN NAME (IF YOU DON’T
ALREADY HAVE IT).
For less than $25/year, you can go on www.godaddy.com and
get your domain addresses ending in both .com and .net. It’s
important to buy both of these extensions so competitors
don’t try to copy your web address. Don’t worry about other
extensions (such as .info), they aren’t necessary. Just make sure
to choose “Auto Renew” so you don’t lose it later. Also, don’t
buy an email package there.
GET A LEGITIMATE EMAIL ADDRESS.
It might not seem like a big deal to use an email address with
@aol, @yahoo or @gmail.com. No one will tell you this, but
not having your email @yourdomain.com signals that you’re
not tech-savvy. Once you own a domain address, you can go
10 NORTH AMERICAN SW EEPER NOVE M BE R 2013
to Google Business Apps at www.Google.com/a and purchase
an email account for $5/mo. The best part? You use YOUR
domain, but your email is hosted on Google’s giant web server.
Another great thing about that is it’s easy to sync your account
to your phone and Outlook since it works and acts just like
Gmail, only now you look professional.
GET DESIGN SOFTWARE AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT
(OR HAVE AN OFFICE STAFF MEMBER LEARN IT).
When I was in high school and college, I loved helping my
dad file papers, and reconcile the books. My favorite part
was learning new computer software, such as Peach Tree,
QuickBooks, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office—you name
it, I learned it. Adobe Creative Suite used to be thousands of
dollars. Now you can go to www.Adobe.com/CreativeCloud
and pay $49.99/mo to get access to almost every Adobe editing
program, and they automatically update your version as a part
of your membership.
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